Another Thing About My New Neighborhood

I think that people who have long hair and cats should get a discount on apartments with hardwood floors. A big discount. This isn't St. Louis, where apartments with hardwood floors are common. Here you have to pay significantly more for hardwood floors, and it seems like the pretty buildings dating to the 1920s are more costly than these drab 1970s buildings.

But at least my apartment building is surrounded by pretty, brightly painted Victorian houses. And cats. They're all over. I've seen at least five in the parking lot already. It's the neighborhood in general--while I walked to Safeway this afternoon, I stopped every so often to pet cats, and one of them was a Himalayan with bright blue eyes. And yesterday while I was unloading my car and leaving stuff sitting outside my front door, the next door neighbor had their door open with the screen door closed, and a big black cat with yellow eyes sat right in the doorway and watched me in fascination. Soul mate. The call of the Cat Goddess. If people reacted to me the way cats do, I'd already have a job at Powell's Books.

Greetings from Kansas

I arrived at this musty house and threw open lots of windows at about 3 pm, and my Journey to the West (well, the first step, that is) is complete. I'm sweating and tired and grumpy and tempted to turn on the air conditioner even though I don't normally do that before July. There is so much around here that still needs to be packed...or left behind. At least sorted through. I have approximately one month before I'm loading a moving van to take to Portland. I wish I could fastforward and already be in the apartment in Portland.

In Phoenix it was pretty funny when Jennifer was appalled that the gas was up to $4.09 a gallon, when just yesterday it was $4. I said, "Wow, is that all?" thinking of the gas station in California where I spent $4.49 a gallon. The greedy and environmentally destructive oil industry is such a mega motivation to sell my car and use public transportation (not to mention let my feet do the walking).

It's hard to see a computer screen through a cat, so please excuse any typos.

Yesterday evening I stayed at a basic hotel in a Texas town called Darnhart or something like that. The hotel was $5 cheaper than the Econolodge that I stayed at in Albaquerque while traveling out west, but the ice machine didn't work; fortunately the room had a fridge and I filled bottles with water and left them in the fridge overnight.

I've only seen a little of Oklahoma, but what I have seen suggests that it has many towns that consist of a handful of trailers and a mill.

I stopped at a tiny Kansas town to buy gas, even though the location is best known for having the hideout of a famous 19th century gang--the name begins with a D and I've forgotten. Brain fart. Anyway, I decided it would be safe to stop there as long as there aren't any more recent gangs. The pumps were archaic and I had trouble figuring out how to use them; I also had to go inside to pay, because the pump had no card swiper.

It only took me a total of eighteen hours to get from Phoenix, AZ to Topeka, KS.

A purring cat in desperate need of petting and brushing keeps getting between me and the computer. Not pleasant to have a shedding cat rub against your sweaty face.

Dreaming in Phoenix

I had a dream in which I was walking on a concrete or grey stone path. It had four steps that went down, and I stepped mindfully, and then the path curved very slightly, and alongside it on the left was a long dark wooden arbor with very green plants covering it and covering a wall on the left side. One or two foot tall colorful creatures, like plaster statues come to life, were headed under the arbor and transformed into tiny brown birds, perhaps sparrows.

I woke at 6 am and took a walk from 6:30 to 8 am. When I got back, Francis was still sleeping and Angelkitty was on the bed with him, but she’s a scaredy cat and quickly, after one look at me, got up, jumped down, and hid under the bed.